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Senecio jacobea

It’s ablooming at the moment, appears in a sunny yellow at the road-and waysides and describes a huge and serious risk for our horses at the meadows and pastures: Senecio jacob ea!

The media exposure of senecio jacobea is meanwhile growing significantly, but nevertheless you find horses grazing next to big, flowering bushes, while driving through the country. It seems that there are inexplicable reasons, why numerous of horses suffer from partly irreversible liver diseases. We need more information in order to protect our horses against this plant, which was sowed once at the roadsides.

Here you can find some basic data which you should know:

Appearance

Tap root with fiber roots, which could spread for at least 30 cm in the surrounding.

First year: rosette with deeply slotted leaves.

Second year: forming of the mostly red coloured, big stem, which branches above the middle.

Composite flower, with round golden yellow blossom which 15 to 20 cm.

Characteristic: 13 yellow flower leafs/ blossom

Bloom beginning in the middle of June

Spreading of plants via numerous seeds, similar to dandelion

Grown plants could be one meter high

Toxidity

Senecio jacobea (highest toxidity) and all other species of ragwort are toxic!

Toxic as fresh plant as well as dried!

Problem: horses don’t hesitate to eat it when dried (fresh plants smell bad and are bitter) and they are still toxic!

Dried plants in hay hardly differ from other grass weed like rhizome sorrel, tanaisie or yellow daisy, but are eaten!

Up to seven weeks young plants don’t have bitter substances and therefore are eaten!

The toxic substances are pyrrolizidine-alkaloides (PA). They are converted to toxic products in metabolism!

The PA’s destroy the liver tissue, are carcinogenic, harm hereditary material and highly damage foetuses.In high doses they harm the central nervous system, the lungs and kidney .

How to handle a liver disease!

Besides a treatment by a veterinarian a dietery which is low in protein and which reliefs the liver is very important, as this delivers special nutrient combinations and supports the detoxification and the regeneration of the liver cells.